Whitehead Spinoza

Philosophical Review
The Problem of Substance in Spinoza and Whitehead

Author(s): D. Bidney
Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 45, No. 6 (Nov., 1936), pp. 574-592
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review
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THE PROBLEM OF SUBSTANCE IN SPINOZA
AND WHITEHEAD'
In his Process and Reality and Science and the Modern World
Professor Whitehead explicitly acknowledges that his metaphysics
bears a close relation to that of Spinoza. Thus he writes:
The philosophy of organism is closely allied to Spinoza's scheme of
thought. But it differs by the abandonment of the subject-predicate
forms of thought, so far as concerns the presuppositions that this form
is a direct embodiment of the most ultimate characterization of fact.
One result is that the substance-quality concept is avoided and that
morphological description is replaced by description of dynamic process.
(P.R. io.)
Similarly in Science and the Modern World (102-3) he says:
In the analogy with Spinoza his one substance is for me the one under-
lying activity of realization individualizing itself in the interlocked
plurality of modes. Thus concrete fact is process. Its primary analysis
is into underlying activity of prehension and into realized prehensive
events.
The passages just quoted bear ample evidence of Whitehead's re-

cognition of the similarity between his system of metaphysics and
that of Spinoza. It shall be my purpose in what follows to make
explicit just wherein the relation between their schemes of thought
lies and what constitutes their fundamental differences. The main
thesis I shall try to maintain is that there is a conflict of philo-
sophical traditions at the basis of the metaphysics of Spinoza and
Whitehead, and that all the problems of Spinoza's metaphysics
recur in Whitehead's works in a more acute form. With this object
in mind I think it best to select for discussion those concepts of
Spinoza's thought to which Whitehead has drawn attention.
The substance of Spinoza is also God or the most perfect being.
The infinite substance or God is allowed a final 'eminent' reality
beyond that of the finite modes or accidents. The principle upon
which this reasoning is based is that of the inseparability of perfec-
tion and reality-a doctrine which identifies Spinoza with all
the other philosophers of the Great Tradition. I suggest that all
' This paper was read in its present form at a session of the Philosophical
Conference held at the University of Toronto in the fall of 1935. The section
on Spinoza is based on a larger study to be entitled The Conflict of Tradi-
tions in the Philosophy of Spinoza.
574
SPINOZA AND WHITEHEAD 575
of Spinoza's proofs of the existence of God can be expressed in

two brief theses: First, existence is an attribute of the essence
of a most perfect being-which is his definition of 'causa sui' and
a doctrine he held in common with St. Anselm. Second, perfection
determines existence, or more elaborately, perfection is prior in
reality to being and is that which determines the actual existence
of being. Hence if anything exists, the most perfect or infinitely
perfect being exists. The point I would make here is that both
theses of Spinoza may be reduced to the single proposition that
perfection (or value) and existence (reality) are inseparable.2
There is one very important implication of Spinoza's doctrine
of perfection. If we say that quantity of perfection determines
existence, it follows at once that an infinitely perfect being is most
real. Another way of arriving at the same conclusion is by begin-
ning with the notion that the attributes of a substance constitute
its essence. From this it follows that the more attributes a sub-
stance has, the greater is its reality, and that hence a substance
constituted by infinite attributes is most real. The common thesis
of both arguments is that only an infinite substance or being is most
real. The finite thing by the very fact of its finitude lacks being.
This thought, I take it, is at the basis of Spinoza's dictum Omnis
determinatio negatio est (i-8, schol. i )-a phrase which is usually
misinterpreted by commentators who begin the study of Spinoza
with a Hegelian bias. It is not that any form or category of being
involves its negate as Hegel would urge, but that a determinate
form of being is by its very nature a limitation or negation of
infinitely perfect being. In brief, the Spinozistic thesis is that the
infinite is prior in nature to the finite.3
I have taken the space-time to elaborate this point because I
regard it as constituting one of the fundamental differences be-
tween Spinoza and Whitehead, as indeed between all philosophia
perennis and modern relationistic philosophies.4 One direct im-
plication of Whitehead's principle of the primacy of process is
that value or perfection is not intrinsically bound up with the
2 See my paper "Value and Reality in the Metaphysics of Spinoza" in this

Review XLV 229.
3 Professor Hallett in his Aeternitas has previously drawn attention to this
point.
4 I am indebted to Professor Sheldon of Yale for the use of this term.
576 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW [VOL. XLV.
nature of reality. Values, as exemplified in various temporal, finite

forms of being, may emerge or evolve in time, but process as such,
unlike Spinoza's substance, is not essentially constituted by value-
attributes. In his Adventures of Ideas Whitehead has some ex-
plicit statements to this effect. He writes: "All realization is finite
and there is no perfection which is the realization of all perfec-
tions" (330). And again (357):
Every occasion is in its own nature finite. There is no totality which is

the harmony of all perfections. Whatever is realized in any one occasion
of experience necessarily excludes the unbounded welter of contrary
possibilities. There are always others which might have been and are
not. This finiteness is not the result of evil or of imperfection. It results
from the fact that there are possibilities of harmony which either pro-
duce evil in point of realization or are incapable of such conjunction.
Here we see that Whitehead follows the Greek rather than the
Hebrew-Christian tradition. For him, as for Plato and Aristotle,
an actual event is that which has some definite form. The infinite
is the formless, that which lacks all determination and therefore all
actuality. Hence according to Whitehead there can be no infi-
nitely perfect being who is the realization of all perfections. Per-
fection is something which can be attributed only to some finite
form of being.
The reason for this fundamental difference between the Greeks
and Whitehead on the one hand, and Spinoza and the Scholastics
on the other, is their different conception of the nature of ulti-
mate reality. For Spinoza the essence of substance consists not in
a particular form but in its attributes. Hence the more attributes
any substance has expressing its power and reality, the more per-
fect is that substance. Therefore the most perfect being or God is a
being constituted by all or infinite attributes (i -9; i-II). Infinity
of being does not mean indeterminateness or lack of definite char-
acteristics. Infinity means absolute fulness of being. In this respect
the infinite of the Hebrew-Christian tradition differs from the in-
finite of the Greeks, the TO APEIRON or boundless of Plato,
which is merely the indeterminate receptacle of forms of being
but in itself lacks all causal efficacy or actuality. Whitehead, like
Plato, conceives all being as dependent upon some finite form. It
is the forms which limit the boundless and produce determinate be-
ing and order and harmony.
No. 6.] SPINOZA AND WHITEHEAD 577
II
Before analysing further the idea of God in Spinoza and White-

head, it may be best to make a few historical remarks about the
nature of substance, in order to see our problems in their proper
perspective.
The early Ionian philosophers asked themselves the question,
what is nature made of? They gave various answers, each one
choosing some substance from sense-experience which he ima-
gined could be the source of all things, such as water, air, etc. The
point I wish to note here is that, once we begin with the notion
of substance as that which is the permanent substratum of all par-
ticular forms of being, we must conceive all particular things as
in some way modes or modifications of that continuous substance
and as having no independent existence apart from that substance.
Plato and Aristotle, as I interpret them, differed from the Ionian
philosophers in that they were metaphysical dualists. They made
a definite separation between the formal and the material prin-
ciples of nature, and then were forced to make desperate,
though unsuccessful, efforts to bring them together again as they
appeared in nature. Plato conceived the realm of Forms or Ideas
as somehow participating in the world of change or flux. If we
follow the account of the Timeus, there were the forms or limits
somehow limiting the boundless or unlimited. Aristotle too, in spite
of his criticism of Plato for separating the forms from particular
things, could not avoid this metaphysical bifurcation. Ultimately,
for him, the highest form of being is God or Pure Form; lowest
in the scale of being is Prime Matter (Hyle) which has a mini-
mum of form.5 Matter is that which has the potentiality for be-
coming all things; form is that which constitutes the essence or
being of things. It is true that as regards particular things Aris-
totle insisted upon an inseparable union of form and matter and
was opposed to the Platonic doctrine of universal forms. The
point I wish to suggest here is that in the end Aristotle also, since
he worked with the two ultimate principles of matter and form,
could not overcome this fatal dualism.
The thought I wish to emphasize here is that the reason why
both Plato and Aristotle insisted upon the distinction between mat-
5 See Metaphysica 1072a, b.
ter and form is that they adopted the thesis of Parmenides, namely,
that being must be unchanging and eternal. That which is ever
in a state of becoming cannot be said to be. Hence they were
opposed to the Heraclitean doctrine that all is flux. This also
is why they rejected the tradition of the Ionian philosophers who
maintained that there is one substance or stuff which serves as the
substratum of all things. If in the observable world there is
change and motion, substance also must be undergoing change;
otherwise one is forced to say with Parmenides and Zeno that
change or motion is an illusion of the senses. By maintaining
the permanence of form as over against the passage of nature,
Plato and Aristotle attempted, though unsuccessfully, to do jus-
tice to the demands of reason and experience.
III
This lesson, it appears, was not taken to heart by Spinoza and

Whitehead; and this accounts for the essential ambiguity of their
thought. Spinoza, as is well known, tried to overcome the dualism
of Descartes by positing one substance constituted by the known
attributes of extension and thought. From this it followed, as
Spinoza himself realized, that all finite, perceptible things must
be regarded ontologically as modes or modifications of that one
infinite substance. But the perfection of an absolutely perfect
substance demanded that it be actually and fully realized in all
respects and not subject to temporal change and process; and
this could not be the case if the infinite substance was the imme-
diate ground or source of the modes. This I take to be the signifi-
cance of those propositions of Spinoza's Ethics (Prop. 2I-28,
Bk. i) where he demonstrates that "all things which follow from
the absolute nature of any attribute of God must forever exist and
must be infinite" (i-2i); and concludes (I-28) that "an individual
thing or a thing which is finite and has a determinate existence
cannot exist nor be determined to action unless it be determined
to existence and action by another cause which is also finite and has
a determinate existence".
To overcome this difficulty, Spinoza resorts to various expedi-
ents. He summons the Neo-Platonists and the Cabbalists to his
aid; and they inform him that if only he introduce a doctrine of
degrees of emanation all his difficulties will be solved. Hence

appears the famous distinction between attributes, immediate in-
finite modes, mediate infinite modes, and finite modes (Letter 64
to Schuller: Sh. Tr. i, ch. 9). The immediate modes which follow
directly from the attributes are eternal, but those which are more
remote from the divine source of perfection lack the potency or
power of the divine substance and hence are subject to mutability.
This argument failed to satisfy some of Spinoza's correspondents,
and in modern times no commentator lets the opportunity go by
without drawing the reader's attention to its shortcomings. The
doctrine of emanation, which in Neo-Platonic literature usually
goes along with degrees of being, is one which Spinoza cannot
consistently adopt if he is to retain an essential monism in which
all finite things are modes or modifications of the divine substance.
Spinoza, however, had a very resourceful mind and besides was
learned in the philosophical traditions. Hence he reintroduced the
Aristotelian distinction between form and matter-but, of course,
like a discreet man, without using these precise terms. He pre-
ferred instead to employ the terminology of Francis Bacon and dis-
tinguished between Natura Naturans and Natura Naturata (Sh.
Tr. 2, ch. 9; Ethics I-29, schol.). For Bacon, Natura Naturans,
the nature engendering nature, is the formal principle in things
(Aphorisms II, I, 2). Natura Naturans is the formal, universal
law or structure immanent in things which determines their op-
erations and properties. The particular thing, as we observe it in
its relations to other things, is nothing but the effect, the natura
naturata, or produced nature, which follows from the active uni-
versal principle within it. The formal principle immanent in things
is eternal and immutable; but the particular things which are the
effects of the latent form are subject to change in time. In Spi-
noza's treatise On the Improvement of the Understanding there
occurs this passage (Wild Edition 39-40):
The essences of particular mutable things are not to be gathered from
their series or order of existence which would furnish us with nothing
beyond their extrinsic denominations, their relations, or at most, their
circumstances, all of which are very different from their inmost essence.
This inmost essence must be sought solely from fixed and eternal things,
and from the laws inscribed (so to speak) in those things as in their true
codes, according to which all particular things take place and are ar-
58o THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW [VOL. XLV.
ranged. Nay, these mutable particular things depend so intimately and

essentially upon the fixed things, that they cannot either be or be
conceived without them. Whence these fixed and eternal things, though
they are themselves particular, will nevertheless, owing to their pres-
ence and power everywhere, be to us as universals or genera of defini-
tions of particular mutable things, and as the proximate causes of all
things.
Now although there have not been wanting commentators who,

when they read this passage, pointed out its similarity to the
thought of Bacon, very few have tried to show the connection
between this doctrine of forms and Spinoza's theory of naturans
and naturata. Instead, learned but futile researches have been
undertaken to trace the history of the term in Scholastic philo-
sophy, which all end by showing that, although Spinoza uses a
term occasionally found in Scholastic literature, he employs it in
a different sense. Although the Scholastics at times spoke of God
as Natura Naturans, they still regarded Him as a being who trans-
cended nature, as the Creator of nature, whereas for Spinoza
Natura Naturans is a principle immanent in nature. My thesis
is that Spinoza simply adopted the Baconian use of the terms, but,
unlike Bacon, he made of them metaphysical principles. God as
Natura Naturans is simply the formal principle immanent in na-
ture as a whole; Natura Naturata, the world of things which de-
pend on God, does not differ substantially from Him. Within
substance itself one is nevertheless forced to introduce the dis-
tinction between active and passive nature, so as to allow for a
formal principle which is constant and is the source of order
in the sense-objects which are always coming into being and ceas-
ing to exist.
It should be remembered in this connection that the primacy
of Natura Naturans implies that God or nature is to be conceived
as a concrete, individual being of a definite, determinate nature.
This means that God must ultimately be conceived as finite be-
cause, as we have shown, the formal and the finite are identical.
An infinite form, as Plato and Aristotle truly saw, is a contradic-
tion. Spinoza attempted to pass lightly over this difficulty by iden-
tifying God as constituted by His eternal, infinite attributes with
Natura Naturans and the world of finite modes with Natura
Naturata. Thus he writes (Ethics I-29, schol.): "By Natura
No. 6.] SPINOZA AND WHITEHEAD 58i
Naturans we are to understand that which is in itself and is con-

ceived through itself or those attributes of substance which ex-
press eternal and infinite essence". Now my contention is that the
principle of Natura Naturans cannot be applied consistently to a
substance whose essence is constituted by attributes. Two entirely
contrary metaphysical theories as to the nature of substance are
involved. Substance as constituted by attributes may be infinite
and perfect, precisely because it lacks a formal, determining prin-
ciple. Spinoza is forced to readopt the substance-attribute meta-
physics because he wishes to retain his metaphysical monism.
Logically, by introducing the concept of Natura Naturans, he has
introduced a formal, relational principle which, considered by it-
self, apart from natura naturata, can no longer be spoken of as an
actual substance qualified by attributes.
Furthermore, to add to the difficulties of the situation, Spinoza
did not realize that his metaphysics was not at all consistent with
his physics. He took over the mechanistic, Democritean physics of
Galileo and Descartes. On this basis, the union of bodies is ex-
plained to be the result of the combination of atomic particles.
Form becomes secondary; form is the result of the union of the
physical particles, but in no way determines their formation.
Although Descartes conceived nature as a continuum of exten-
sion, he continued to speak of particles and primary and secondary
qualities as if the atomic physics still held. Since he held further
that thought constituted a distinct substance, he conceived man
as composed of a substantial soul and a mechanistic body and
then was faced with the problem of the interaction of body and
mind.
As regards Spinoza, the situation is more complex. In so far as
he held to the doctrine that nature was one infinite substance, his
individuals, as modes of that substance, had to be internally re-
lated to that substance, which determined their essence and exist-
ence. This step Spinoza refused to take. Instead he proceeded
to separate the world of modes from the infinite substance. The
perceptible world he, like Descartes, conceived as acting according
to mechanistic laws. Furthermore, on the basis of his Baconian
theory of forms, Natura Naturans should have been the formal,
determining principle of nature as a whole. Instead we find that the
form of nature is something secondary and derivative depending

upon the combination of individual things. Spinoza's doctrine of
the world conceived from the standpoint of physics is best illus-
trated by the following passage (2-lemma 7 preceding prop. 14)
If we now consider an individual of another kind composed of many

individuals of diverse natures we shall discover that it may be affected
in many other ways, its nature nevertheless being preserved. For since
each of its parts is composed of a number of bodies, each part without
any change of its nature can move more slowly or more quickly and
consequently can communicate its motion more quickly or more slowly
to the rest. If we now imagine a third kind of individual composed of
these of the second kind, we shall discover that it can be affected in
many other ways without any change of form. Thus if we advance ad
infinitum we may easily conceive the whole of nature to be one indi-
vidual, whose parts, that is to say, all bodies, differ in infinite ways
without any change of the whole individual.
Here we see that nature, conceived as an individual, is such as a

result of the communication of parts in motion in a definite ratio of
motion and rest. The parts are not conceived as internally or ne-
cessarily related to one another, and the form of the whole in no
way determines the action of the parts. I submit that such a physi-
cal theory is not consistent with a metaphysics which gives the
primacy to the formal principle, nor is it consistent with a monis-
tic theory in which all nature is a continuum of changeless sub-
stance.
IV
We turn now to a similar analysis of Whitehead's metaphysics.

The general thesis I shall try to maintain is that all the difficulties
of Spinoza's metaphysics recur in Whitehead's works in a more
aggravated form. Let us consider:
Throughout all his work Whitehead repeats and repeats the
lesson that as a result of modern physics we must no longer
conceive of nature as constituted by inert, static substances. The
electrical theory of matter is that matter is essentially an activity,
quanta of energy. The notion of an inert substance qualified by
attributes must be abandoned and in its place we must substitute
process or series of occasions and events. Whitehead expresses
this doctrine clearly and briefly in his pamphlet, Nature and Life,
where he says: "Matter has been identified with energy and energy
is activity; the passive substratum composed of self-identical
enduring bits of matter has been abandoned". He is careful to

point out that we must not commit the fallacy of 'simple location'
by regarding any bit of energy in isolation from its environment.
To quote again: "In the modern concept the group of agitations
which we term matter is fused into its environment. There is no
possibility of a detached, self-contained local existence. The
environment enters into the nature of each thing."
The question now occurs, What is the relation between the
individual forms of energy and the cosmic activity which consti-
tutes their environment? Is Process in any way to be conceived
as a unity? Is it prior to the events? It seems to me that Whitehead,
like Bergson, in spite of his repeated criticisms of the category
of substance is forced to reintroduce it under another name. For
him the ultimate substrate of things is energy of some sort. Process
or energy is that whose nature it is to act-just as Descartes con-
ceived the soul as that whose nature it is to think and therefore
held that the soul thinks always. In his Science and the Modern
World (I02-3) Whitehead states his position clearly: "In the
analogy with Spinoza his one substance is for me the one underly-
ing activity of realization individualizing itself in an interlocked
plurality of modes.-Each event is an individual matter of fact
issuing from an individualizing of the substrate activity." Here
we see clearly that Whitehead, like Spinoza, postulates one funda-
mental substrate of which all things are modes, but he identifies
this substrate with activity.
The main reasons for Whitehead's rejection of the category
of substance are two:
First, there is the argument from Logic and Mathematics which
he holds in common with Bertrand Russell. Throughout all his
works Whitehead makes it very obvious that he is opposed to a
substance-attribute metaphysics and to a subject-predicate logic.
Instead he urges that philosophy should be based on a logic which
gives the primacy to relations or structure and not to the terms
or subjects. Similarly in metaphysics the ultimate principle must
be a relational activity and not some underlying static substance.
He believes that some such entity as process, change, or becoming,
is the ultimate reality which serves as the bond of relation between
the various events or occasions which emerge in time from the
cosmic process. Just as in logic it is the relational form of the
proposition which determines the truth-function of the variable

term, so in metaphysics, process or creativity is the relational
principle which constitutes reality as one continuum.
Secondly, there is the Bergsonian argument from Intuition and
the Theory of Creative Evolution. Bergson in his Introduction to
Metaphysics and Creative Evolution reveals to us most clearly
the fundamental presupposition of modern relationistic philoso-
phy. Becoming, he argues, is more intelligible than being. This,
he claims, can be shown if we bear in mind the phenomenon of
motion. Movement is not the series of static positions of things.
It is essentially a certain duration of flux. This duration can be
analysed for the purposes of action into a series of stages or posi-
tions, but motion cannot be reconstructed through a series of
static positions. When one attempts to do so he becomes involved
in all the paradoxes of Zeno. Similarly from Becoming or Process
we can by abstraction derive various static forms of being. But
from the notion of being one cannot derive the notion of becoming.
In this respect, Bergson and Whitehead maintain, all philosophies
of the past have been misled by the Aristotelian subject-predicate
logic and by the consequent substance-attribute metaphysics.
As said, the doctrine of the primacy of becoming over being
depends upon the assumption that becoming is more intelligible
than being. This, I wish to urge, is a fallacious assumption. There
is more, I should say, to active being than to static being, there is
more to a body in motion than to a body in a series of static posi-
tions; but process or activity apart from a being or substance to
which it may be attributed is essentially unintelligible. It seems
to me that Whitehead's remark in his Nature and Life that "It is
always possible to work one's self into a state of complete content-
ment with an ultimate irrationality" is well illustrated in the case
of Relationistic philosophers.
The compatibility of the category of substance with the category
of activity is best demonstrated by the philosophy of Leibniz,
whose influence Whitehead acknowledges. Leibniz, it will be
recalled, was opposed to the Cartesian-Spinozistic conception of a
continuous extended substance. Extension by nature was divisible
and hence, he claimed, substance as extended was not really one.
Instead he conceived a theory of monads or individual substances
which were centres of activity. The activity of the monad or unit
consisted in its perception or representation of the universe of

other monads. Monads differ from one another in the qualities of
their perceptions. There are degrees of activity. Perception is the
lowest form of activity and does not involve consciousness. It
corresponds to one's state when he is in a swoon or deep sleep.
Apperception involves consciousness or reflective knowledge of
these inner states and is characteristic of souls. Briefly put, the
following points are important in this connection. First, the ulti-
mate constituents of reality are individual substances whose
essence consists in the character of their experience. Second, one
monad has nothing in common with another and cannot affect
that other. This is what Leibniz means by saying that all monads
are windowless. Third, each monad experiences or represents the
rest of the universe as a result of the preestablished harmony
arranged by God. Fourth, space or extension is not a substantial
or real attribute of a monad; it is only a phenomenal relation
between substances. Fifth, all nature is essentially alive though in
varying degrees. Sixth, each monad is internally determined.
If now we examine the writings of Whitehead we find certain
marked similarities. In his Concept of Nature he agrees with
Leibniz that space is not an attribute of reality, but only a relation
between events. Secondly, he agrees that the ultimate subjective
or formal nature of each event consists in the enjoyment of some
experience, though he defines experience differently. Of course,
there are some important differences between them. Whitehead
is opposed to a theory of pluralistic substances such as Leibniz
maintains; he conceives the Leibnizian monads as events or modes
of a more ultimate Spinozistic substance. Furthermore, he is
opposed to the substance-attribute view implied in Leibniz's
doctrine that the monads are substances to which discernible
differences of activity or quality are attributed. He is opposed to a
'windowless' theory of substance such that there is no interaction
between things. Whitehead's variations seem to consist, first, in
postulating internal relations between various actual events instead
of internal relations between the various experiences of one entity.
Thus he avoids the doctrine of a preestablished harmony and at
the same time agrees with Leibniz that each event, on account of
its internal relations, mirrors the whole universe. Secondly,
according to Whitehead, the actual occasions have no substantial
existence of their own; they are modes or effects of cosmic

process or creativity. In this manner he is interpreting the Leib-
nizian monads in a Spinozistic fashion; he retains the doctrine of
Leibniz that the nature of things consists in their activity or
experience, but like Spinoza he refuses to give individual things a
substantial existence of their own. Whitehead himself summarizes
his position clearly in Process and Reality (pt. 2, ch. 2, P. I24):
This is a theory of monads, but it differs from Leibniz's in that his
monads change. In the organic theory they merely become. Each monadic
creature is a mode of the process of 'feeling' the world, of housing the
world in one unit of complex feeling in every way determinate. Such a
unit is an actual occasion-it is the ultimate creature derivative from
the creative process.
I suggested in the preceding paragraph that Whitehead is inter-

preting the Leibnizian monads in Spinozistic fashion. The same
point can be made by saying that Whitehead's system approxi-
mates a form of the Indian Upanishidic philosophy. He himself
makes this suggestion in his Process and Reality (ii) where he
says:
In monistic philosophies Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate

is God, who is also equivalently termed 'The Absolute'. In such monistic
schemes the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final 'eminent' reality
beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the
philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of
Indian or Chinese thought than to Western Asiatic or European thought.
One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.
The connection between the Indian conception of the ultimate

nature of process and Whitehead's theory is very close. In both
there is the doctrine that the ultimate substrate of things is inde-
terminate activity or process, from which the world of finite,
temporal forms emerges. For both this ultimate process is essen-
tially qualitative experiential feeling or subjective enjoyment with-
out representation or consciousness; experience is said to be prior
to consciousness. One might also say that the theory of cosmic,
indeterminate experience is akin to one of Leibniz's lowgrade
monads but conceived as a boundless, infinite continuum after the
fashion of the Platonic space of the Timeus.6 Whitehead, how-
ever, differs from the Indian sages in insisting with the Greeks
6 In his Science and First Principles Professor Northrop has developed
the theory that the Platonic space of the Timaus is identical with the inde-
terminate boundless of Oriental philosophy. This point of view enables one
to gain insight into Whitehead's doctrine.
that loss of finite, actual individuality is a real loss, not a gain;

that the individual attains his perfection by achieving some har-
monious form of being and thereby extricating himself from the
indeterminacy of pure experience.
At this point the problem which the Ionian philosophers and

Spinoza faced recurs. If we begin with infinite, indeterminate
experience, how shall we account for the origin of change and
differentiation into finite modes? In Whitehead's system the pro-
blem is more acute than in Spinoza's because the latter at least
started with an actual determinate substance with power of activity
to modify itself into various finite modes. But Whitehead's ulti-
mate substrate is indeterminate potentiality or feeling, lacking any
actual powers and characteristics. How is one to derive actuality
from potentiality? Aristotle postulated a pure form or actuality,
which he also designates as Prime Mover, because he was con-
vinced that potentiality was intelligible only in relation to a prior
actuality.7 This too is the common assumption of Maimonides, St.
Thomas, and Spinoza. The reason why Spinoza takes such pains
to prove the existence of an absolutely infinite, perfect substance
is because he assumes that all becoming or process, all modes that
become in time, can be rendered intelligible only by conceiving
some infinitely perfect being of which they are the effects. In
brief, the less real or perfect is to be explained by the more real
or perfect. Whitehead, however, in common with Bergson and S.
Alexander, has to explain the origin of the actual from the poten-
tial. I suggest here that he can do so only by endowing the
potential with attributes which can consistently be attributed only
to something actual. This is shown by the fact that Whitehead
endows Process or Creativity with an urge or Eros to realize itself.
He thus introduces into the cosmic process the principle of appeti-
tion or endeavor which characterized Leibniz's monads. A typical
passage illustrating this thought occurs in Adventures of Ideas
(357): "We must conceive the divine Eros as the active enter-
tainment of all ideas with the urge to their finite realization each
in its due season. Thus a process must be inherent in God's nature
whereby his infinity is acquiring realization." I conclude from the
7 See Metaphysica I049b.
above quotation that Whitehead endeavors to derive the actual

from the potential by attributing to process an eros or urge to
realize all possibilities. This, it seems to me, is to endow process
with attributes which it cannot have in so far as it is mere indeter-
minate potentiality. To say as Miss Emmet does in her book White-
head's Philosophy of Organism (248) that "in the last resort
action can do anything that it must do in order for there to be
anything at all", is to give up any claim to rational interpretation
and explanation of the nature of reality.
Whitehead himself is implicitly aware of the unsatisfactoriness
of his position. Nature exhibits not only process but also con-
stancy. According to the Concept of Nature, there are universal
forms of being which appear or are situated in the ephemeral
events; e.g., Cambridge blue may be situated in many events, but
the blue does not change with the events. These universals White-
head later calls "eternal objects". The point here is that he realizes
that one cannot derive these eternal objects from the mere notion
of creativity or process.
Thus Whitehead like Spinoza is forced by the problem of the
relation of permanence and change to revise his conception of the
nature of God. Like Spinoza he comes to maintain that God must
be conceived as a purely formal principle, rather than as a sub-
strate of events. God is then conceived by him as the "Principle
of Concretion", as that in virtue of which the eternal objects or
pure possibilities are brought into relation with actual events so
that they become relevant to one another. God so conceived is a
purely formal, relating principle which makes the eternal objects
and events grow together (concrescence). He does not create or
produce eternal objects and events. He also serves as a limiting
principle, limiting the number of possibles from among the infinite
many which can be actually realized. By this limitation God intro-
duces values into the world. The points here indicated are clearly
stated by Whitehead in the following passages. In Science and
the Modern World (257) he writes: "God is the ultimate limita-
tion and His existence is the ultimate irrationality. For no reason
can be given for just that limitation which it stands in his nature
to impose." And again (258) : "If He be conceived as the supreme
ground for limitation, it stands in his very nature to divide the
good from the evil". So in Process and Reality (522) : "By reason
of this primordial actuality [of God] there is an order in the rele-

vance of eternal objects to the process of creation".
In so far as God is the principle of concretion, He is, like the
Natura Naturans of Spinoza, a purely formal principle and not
at all a substance or substrate underlying its modes. It seems to
me that Whitehead commits the same error as Spinoza in con-
tinuing to attribute to God, considered purely as a formal principle,
attributes which could only pertain to Him if He were a substance.
This explains why Whitehead proceeds to speak of God himself
as an accident or emergent of the general activity. Thus in Process
and Reality ( i i ) we find the arresting statement: "In the philoso-
phy of organism, this ultimate is termed creativity and God is its
primordial non-temporal accident". And again (P.R. I35): "This
is the conception of God according to which He is considered as
the outcome of creativity, as the foundation of order and as the
goal towards novelty". These passages may serve as sufficient
indication that Whitehead is attempting to combine the notion
of God as a principle of order or concretion, with God as in some
sense identical with ultimate creativity or substantial activity. To
solve this difficulty he conceives of God as an emergent or mode
of creativity, Who then proceeds to act as principle of concretion.
The difficulties of Spinoza's theory are slight as compared to
those of Whitehead. Spinoza, at least, was always dealing with the
actual. God, whether as consisting of infinite attributes or as
Nature Naturans, was always actual. Whitehead, however, has
two realms, the potential and the actual, and is faced with the
problem of deriving the one from the other. On the level of the
potential he endows process or creativity with the conative urge
to realize itself. Then, as this is not sufficient to account for the
facts, he adds a principle of concretion to synthesize and limit the
eternal objects and the actual events, if and when the latter do
emerge. Whitehead is consistent enough to realize that God identi-
fied with process or creativity, and God as principle of concretion,
are still merely potential and not anything actual. Hence he pro-
ceeds to evolve an actual God Who will be not merely "primordial"
but also "consequent". Let us see how he attempts to accomplish
this feat.
As said, Whitehead does not wish to confuse the actual with
the potential. God, as primordial, shares the nature of the poten-
tial, in that, though actual, He is not fully actual; He is "deficiently

actual". He has only conceptual "luring" feelings, not physical
feelings (P.R. 522). In the fulness of time God too becomes
actual, but He is dependent upon the activity of the actual occa-
sions. When eternal objects become realized in actual events as a
result of the cooperation of God considered in His primordial
nature, then they also exist as ideas in the mind of God. As a
consequence of the realization of the eternal possibilities, the
potential nature of God becomes realized too. This can be under-
stood in two ways: First, the Divine Being acquires a consequent
nature because the indeterminate, boundless activity takes on a
definite, determinate character as a result of the self-creative func-
tion of the interrelated events. Secondly, from the point of view
of God as the principle of concretion, we can say that God is
conscious of the actual interrelation between the various objects
of nature considered as a unity. He is, so to speak, the actual order
of nature, whereas in His primordial nature He was simply the
necessary condition or source of order. Furthermore, in the
passage of nature, events endure for a limited time or epoch and
then cease to be. But in perishing each event enjoys an "objective
immortality"' because it constitutes a part of the eternal nature
of the consequent character of God. In this sense God is the home
of values. Typical passages illustrating Whitehead's conception
of the dual nature of God are the following from Process and
Reality.
Thus analogously to all actual entities, the nature of God is dipolar.
He has a primordial nature and a consequent nature. The consequent
nature of God is conscious, and it is the realization of the actual world
in the unity of His nature, and through the transformation of His wis-
dom. The primordial nature is conceptual, the consequent nature is the
weaving of God's physical feelings upon His primordial concepts (524).
Thus by reason of the relativity of all things, there is a reaction of the
world on God. The completion of God's nature into a fulness of physical
feelings is derived from the objectification of the world in God. He
shares with every new creature its actual world; and the concrescent
creature is objectified in God as a novel element in God's objectification
of that actual world (523).
By a long and devious route Whitehead has finally arrived at

the stage where Spinoza and the classical philosophers began; but,
so far as I can see, his actual or consequent God has no causal
efficacy. He serves as a sort of reservoir of values and past
No. 6.] SPINOZA AND WHITEHEAD 59I
objectives, and is a symbol of human aspirations. In his eagerness

to preserve the autonomy and freedom of the individual, White-
head has relegated his God to a secondary position.8 What is done
on earth is registered in heaven, but earth is primary. Whitehead's
attitude is clearly shown in Process and Reality.
The sheer force of things lies in the intermediate physical process; this
is the energy of physical production. God's role is not the combat of
productive force with productive force, of destructive force with de-
structive force; it lies in the patient operation of the over-powering
rationality of His conceptual harmonization.He does not create the world,
He saves it; or, more accurately, He is the poet of the world, with
tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty and goodness
(525-526).
In order to guarantee the freedom of the individual, Whitehead

conceives of God as acting simply by persuasion and as exerting
no force. As primordial, God is simply an unconscious urge
imparted to the occasions; as consequent, He is the conscious
object of desire. Thus we receive back again the Unmoved Mover
of Aristotle's psychology, though the Unmoved Mover of the
Aristotelian physics and biology is rejected.
Briefly put, the reasons for the inadequacy of Whitehead's
system are two. First, he attempts to derive the actual from the
potential. This I regard as intrinsically impossible and unintel-
ligible. Secondly, he is trying to combine a monistic metaphysics
with a pluralistic theory of physics and biology-a fallacy similar
to that of Spinoza. Instead of offering us any solution of the
perennial problem of the one and the many, he merely restates the
difficulties in a more ambiguous and aggravated form. He wishes
to retain a monistic substrate and also to keep the independence
of the individual events and their self-creativeness. At one time
he gives the primacy to God and calls the individuals modes of
'It is instructive to note in this connection that Spinoza is more oriental

in his conception of freedom than is Whitehead. Spinoza takes determinism
seriously; the law of cause and effect, the law of Karma, holds with in-
exorable necessity among the modes; and there is also a necessary con-
nection in the dependence of the modes upon ultimate substance. Freedom,
in the last analysis, consists in identifying oneself with the eternal source
of all value and being (4-28). Spinoza, however, differs from the orientals
in that this identification is the result of an intellectual love of God, and
does not involve an ecstatic state of spiritual intoxication wherein there is
loss of self-consciousness. Whitehead, on the other hand, is anxious to pre-
serve the freedom of the individual apart from any reference to the ulti-
mate substrate. Every occasion gives birth to some novelty; there is an
indeterminism about each actual occasion and about God. No ground or
reason can be given for the creative activity of God or the events.
592 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
His activity; at other times he gives the primacy to the nexus

of events and conceives of God as an accident derived from the
process.9 It seems to me that he actually has a vicious bifurcation
between his fundamental principles, though he tries vainly to
reassure us that he does not mean to introduce any real dualism
or bifurcation.
The positive theses to be derived from this paper are two. First,
an ultimately intelligible theory of metaphysics must begin with
the primacy of the actual, as Aristotle, the Scholastics and Spinoza
insisted.'0 Secondly, a metaphysics which is to do justice to the
problems of the one and the many, permanence and change,
eternity and time, must in the last analysis be some form of
dualism. There must be some eternal principle of being over
against the world of events. This was the great insight of Plato
and Aristotle and the failure to appreciate that insight accounts
for the mutual difficulties of Spinoza and Whitehead. Just pre-
cisely how these two metaphysical principles are to be harmonized
is still the task of future philosophy.
D. BIDNEY
YESHIVA COLLEGE
9 Although Whitehead in his Science and the Modern World emphasiz

organic character of his philosophy and its close relation to the monism of
Spinoza, yet in his Process and Reality he has a tendency to go to the
opposite extreme. It is surprising to find him saying (114): "Thus the
philosophy of organism is pluralistic in contrast with Spinoza's monism".
In his anxiety to guarantee the autonomy and independence of the events,
Whitehead tends to conceive them somewhat as temporal monads each of
which is a 'causa sui' (135). It is hard to see how this pluralism in the realm
of physics and biology is consistent with his previously acknowledged meta-
physical monism (Sc. Mod. World 99). Instead of having God, the ultimate
metaphysical reality, explain the origin of events, he attempts to have the
temporal events account for the origin of this eternal principle. This pro-
cedure renders his whole philosophy intrinsically unintelligible and goes
contrary to all philosophy of the past. Whitehead's theory is simply a com-
plex illustration of the problems of the one and the many, permanence and
change, but in the last analysis solves none of them.
10 I am much indebted to Professor Urban's The Nature of the Intelligible
World for an appreciation of the notion of intrinsic intelligibility. Professor
Urban has developed this thesis from an axiological point of view which pre-
supposes Neo-Kantian categories. My thesis, however, is in agreement with
common-sense Aristotelian and Scholastic doctrine. The main insight to be
derived from a study of modern Relationistic philosophies and 'Philosophia
Perennis' is that revolutions in philosophy accomplish as little as in the realm
of politics. In the realm of the intellect as in the Commonwealth there re-
sults nothing but chaos and the destruction of sacred values and institu-
tions. When in the process of time a less hysterical mood prevails, one
comes to realize that certain categories of thought, certain principles of
metaphysics, cannot be violated if we are to continue to live and think
rationally.

Whitehead Spinoza

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Philosophical Review

The Problem of Substance in Spinoza and Whitehead

The passages just quoted bear ample evidence of Whitehead's re-

of Spinoza's proofs of the existence of God can be expressed in

2 See my paper "Value and Reality in the Metaphysics of Spinoza" in this

nature of reality. Values, as exemplified in various temporal, finite

Every occasion is in its own nature finite. There is no totality which is

Before analysing further the idea of God in Spinoza and White-

5 See Metaphysica 1072a, b.

This lesson, it appears, was not taken to heart by Spinoza and

degrees of emanation all his difficulties will be solved. Hence

ranged. Nay, these mutable particular things depend so intimately and

Now although there have not been wanting commentators who,

Naturans we are to understand that which is in itself and is con-

form of nature is something secondary and derivative depending

If we now consider an individual of another kind composed of many

Here we see that nature, conceived as an individual, is such as a

We turn now to a similar analysis of Whitehead's metaphysics.

enduring bits of matter has been abandoned". He is careful to

proposition which determines the truth-function of the variable

consisted in its perception or representation of the universe of

existence of their own; they are modes or effects of cosmic

I suggested in the preceding paragraph that Whitehead is inter-

In monistic philosophies Spinoza's or absolute idealism, this ultimate

The connection between the Indian conception of the ultimate

that loss of finite, actual individuality is a real loss, not a gain;

At this point the problem which the Ionian philosophers and

7 See Metaphysica I049b.

above quotation that Whitehead endeavors to derive the actual

of this primordial actuality [of God] there is an order in the rele-

tial, in that, though actual, He is not fully actual; He is "deficiently

By a long and devious route Whitehead has finally arrived at

objectives, and is a symbol of human aspirations. In his eagerness

In order to guarantee the freedom of the individual, Whitehead

'It is instructive to note in this connection that Spinoza is more oriental

His activity; at other times he gives the primacy to the nexus

9 Although Whitehead in his Science and the Modern World emphasiz

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